


I have a headache

by thaumatomane (choosedailymail)



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Community: jsmn-kinkmeme, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Massage, Sickfic, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choosedailymail/pseuds/thaumatomane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Norrell has a headache and Childermass finds a way to soothe it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I have a headache

**Author's Note:**

> So a kinkmeme prompt (http://jsmn-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1273.html?thread=1115897#cmt1115897) for Norrell having a headache and Childermass massaging it better just grabbed me and this was the soppy result. I was going to keep this one anonymous but had such a kind response on the meme I thought I'd share it here too.

Mr Norrell knew if he feigned anxiety over something, a social gathering perhaps, Childermass would talk him round somehow. But a headache! Only a doctor, which Childermass certainly wasn’t, could prove whether or not Norrell was indeed suffering from one. Even then proof could only be via a series of questions. There were no visible symptoms to a headache, which made them so easy to falsify. This is not to say Norrell's headaches were always fabricated. Quite the contrary. Mr Norrell would only stoop to creating a headache in the direst of circumstances, such as not wanting to argue further with his pupil for instance. For a magician, he was a notoriously bad liar. Norrell’s master-illusion of suffering was to repeatedly inform his company of his headache until they left him in peace to continue reading or sit in welcomed silence. Childermass could easily see through his master’s charade but would never question him on it. It was not his place to.   
  
Despite these instances of fraudulence, Childermass knew a real headache when he saw one, as he did now. Norrell called for him just before midnight and apologised quietly for getting him out of bed - the first sign he was out of sorts. Dark bags hung under his eyes, the whites bloodshot, watery. His palm lay flat against his forehead as Childermass crept closer, careful not to tread heavily. Norrell looked fragile as he sat propped against the pillows, lit by one flickering candle – as much light as he could bear. Childermass’ instant reaction was to take care of him, protect him. As per his usual method, Norrell announced he had a headache, and sought sympathy from the one man he thought might give it to him. Sitting on the edge of the bed Childermass asked if there was anything he might do to help.   
  
Today had been stressful to say the least. Strange’s review spread tension through the house like a contagion, caught even by some of the maids. (Childermass on the other hand was unperturbed, he had found the situation rather amusing.) Mr Lascelles had shouted, thrown various objects about and made those around him on edge vicariously. When Strange arrived and announced his withdrawal from Mr Norrell’s tutorage, it sent him into despair.   
  
Childermass saw trails of tears upon Norrell’s cheeks in the candlelight. Perhaps he’d cried so much he’d made himself suffer further for it, the pressure of such emotions thumping into his skull until he could cry no more. Whatever the circumstances, Childermass was in no doubt that Norrell was in pain. He also had absolutely no clue how to help soothe it.   
  
“There’s nothing you can do,” Norrell said angrily, as if it was obvious. Childermass gave him a soft but lengthy look; a look that asked, well then what am I doing here? Norrell seemed to understand it, for he quickly made well on his snapping. “I would just like you to sit with me.” Such a request from his master was strange. Norrell so often wanted to be alone. So often he thought he  _was_  alone, only for Childermass to clear his throat at his desk and scare him silly. This would often happen in succession, Norrell forgetting Childermass' presence time and time again.   
  
“Would you prefer to sit in the library? I can fetch some tea?” Norrell shook his head.   
  
“No, here is fine. I – I'm in quite too much agony to move.”   
  
Childermass tried to recall the best remedies he knew for headaches. His mother once said, a long time ago, that crushing heather into one’s palm and inhaling the scent could help.[1] Childermass couldn’t remember the last time he'd seen heather growing wild, not since coming to London. There was a time in his own experience, when he had been suffering from yellow fever, wherein he had placed a strip of wet cloth to his brow. The cool water seeped into his skin and eased the pounding a little. Once during a ride to Thurlstone, Childermass’ horse had tripped mid-canter and sent him tumbling out of the saddle and onto his back.[2] Coming back to consciousness with the aid of the horse’s guilty licks, he had walked them both the rest of the way. Upon reaching his destination (a small cottage owned by a Miss Saunderson) with perhaps a worse headache than the one accompanying his yellow fever, his host sat him down and immediately began to massage his head, speaking softly into his ear. It had helped enormously and for a while he felt the most contented he had in a long time.   
  
Perhaps he might try the same with Mr Norrell.  
  
Shuffling a little closer, Childermass reached out to touch his master's forehead with the back of his hand. The skin felt hot, as though he might be developing a fever. Or maybe he'd just been crying for too long. However, Childermass was not assessing his temperature. The touch had been a test, to see how he would react to hands on him. Encouragingly, Norrell leant into the coolness of his servant’s skin, closed his eyes against him and did not pull away. Turning his hand over, Childermass softly stroked his master’s forehead with the pad of his thumb, using the gentlest pressure. Norrell opened his eyes in reaction, looking at Childermass with blank confusion. Then Childermass rubbed little circles into the centre of his forehead and it felt... pleasant.   
  
After a few minutes of this gentle petting, in which Norrell did not pull away, Childermass raised his other hand. With slow strokes he dragged his thumbs across the spaces above Norrell’s eyebrows, from the centre outward. Norrell relaxed into it, letting out a little hum of pleasure.   
  
“Is this helping Sir?” Childermass asked. His voice seemed to break Norrell from a bubble of bliss for he jumped, opening his eyes sharply. Childermass thought he may have just been drifting off to sleep, his voice the step one falls over in a dream that jolts us awake.   
  
“Hmm..? Yes. Yes, keep doing it,” he mumbled.   
  
Childermass smiled and curled his fingertips over the dark hair at Norrell’s temples. Circling them gently, they forced another satisfied sound from him. He quite enjoyed having such command over his master’s body. Briefly, a flicker of memory came to him. It was of resting his head against Miss Saunderson’s lap, and her delicate fingers twisting in his hair. She was lonely, and bereft of human contact. The wound he suffered from the unexpected dismount hadn’t been so bad, just a nick on the chin and a grazed jaw, and he was a stranger to her, but she treated him like he was the dearest thing to her, scarred from battle or protecting her honour. Norrell could never feel loneliness, not the way she did. He'd be content to be locked in a box until the end of time, if only he had books to accompany him there. But perhaps he might crave the touch of another. When, Childermass thought, in his decades of service had he ever witnessed Norrell physically engage with anyone? Childermass assumed he hated such contact. As he felt his master rest his weight into his palms, sighing in contentment, the assumption became invalid. Maybe Norrell was only happy to be touched by those he trusted; these people were few and far between.  
  
It was easy to slip off Norrell’s nightcap, for his intruding fingers had already loosened it considerably. Norrell’s hair was soft and his curls a little too short to gain purchase upon. In the candlelight it appeared almost black, with the odd flash of grey here and there. Childermass massaged his scalp, altering pressures to find which he liked best. He decided it was easier to ask.   
  
“What soothes the most?” he asked quietly, reluctant to scare him out of the moment again, “gentle, or a little harder?”   
  
“Nnnggg, I don’t care,” Norrell muttered, his eyes opening a crack before closing again. No preference then, Childermass thought; he could continue to do what he wanted with him.   
  
Childermass crept his fingertips to the nape of Norrell’s neck, combing them up through the short hair there. His hands swept up and over his crown, forcing him to arch forward as they made their way to his forehead, pushing tresses over it. He did this a few times, and felt a slight tightness in his chest at the soft sounds Norrell made every so often in response. He seemed much calmer now, more like a purring cat than the shuddering whining thing he had been when Childermass first came to him. Childermass’ fingertips had drawn the headache out of him, pacified him. The stresses of the day had all but evaporated.   
  
“Do you feel you might rest now?” Childermass whispered.   
  
The bliss of the unusual attention had left Norrell’s features slack, his lips loose and parted.   
  
“Yes,” he breathed, “thank you Childermass.”   
  
Childermass would take his leave then. Norrell's head rested back against the pillows and within a minute he was asleep.  
  
Back in his own bed, Childermass considered what just happened. It was perhaps the most intimate encounter he'd had with Mr Norrell, yet at the same time it felt as normal as one of his everyday duties. He could not imagine anyone else wishing to offer the same comfort to Norrell. When he really thought about it, he could not imagine Norrell  _wanting_  anyone else to either. Without dwelling on it much, he pondered the possibility of Norrell doing the same for him. He pictured his master combing his fingers through his loosened hair, and stroking the top of his head as he sat at his feet. The thought made him feel warm and oddly at home. Norrell would never. Surely? But then, he had never asked…  
  
A couple of days later, when no one was around, Childermass groaned melodramatically into his book. When Norrell asked him what was wrong he answered with a complaint abused so often by his master, but never heard from Childermass’ mouth until now.  
  
“I have a headache Sir.” 

 

* * *

 

##### Footnotes (click number to return to place within text)

1 Black Joan was pleased to broadcast the numerous uses for the plant, as she often sold it on street corners for extra money. After spending the morning picking it from the moors, she'd collect the heather into small bundles and tie them with straw ribbon. These bundles would then be displayed neatly in a Moses basket and she would call out to passersby that the heather she was selling was lucky. Despite the abundance of freely growing Yorkshire heather available to the townsfolk, they sold well.

2 The reason for Childermass’ ride to Thurlstone (a small farming village in Sheffield) early in his service of Mr Norrell, was to collect a quantity of books. A blind mathematician by the name of Nicholas Saunderson had passed his small collection of mathematical volumes to his only daughter upon his death. She decided to sell them during a period of penury and advertised that amongst the books she'd read to her father were a number of magical texts. This of course caught Mr Norrell’s attention and he bought them immediately.


End file.
